Moses Lake Company Hit With $192K in L-I Fines, Plans Appeal

Following a series of inspections by Labor and Industries officials, a Moses Lake chemical company is facing a large fine.

   Two Rivers Terminal LLC, which also has locations in Pasco and Umatilla, has been given a $192,620 fine for violations.

According to Labor and Industries, the company has been hit with 46 serious violations and 17 general health and safety issues.

The company formulates products for agricultural fertilizer, airports pulp and paper companies, and water treatment.

According to L-I:

"(L&I) inspectors found 13 violations relating to confined space entry rules due to workers entering rail car hoppers. The employees were going in the hoppers to breakup and dislodge ammonium nitrate without appropriate safety precautions."

They also claimed:

"Inspectors also found employees working on top of rail cars and sulfur trucks without fall protection, and failing to make sure the power supply to dangerous equipment was turned off and locked so it couldn’t turn back on."

L-I says the company has been cooperating with them to fix these allegations, but the safety issues were too large to ignore.

L-I also claims the company did not have site-specific safety programs, or a training program and was not requiring employee respirator use while working with hazardous chemicals--as required by L-I.

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The company has appealed the citation and the fines. L-I did not specify if any of the violations occurred in Pasco or Umatilla.